The year 2006 was a record-setting year for Bollywood films in America, with Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna breaking the $4 million barrier. But as the year ends, Bollywood is not only in theatres but also available on mainstream television channels. Yes, a new venture has taken off and it's all about making Bollywood films available on demand.

If you are in New York and tune into Channel 500 on Time Warner Cable, you could immediately start watching Rang De Basanti, India’s nominee for the 2007 Oscar awards. That’s courtesy BODVOD or Bollywood on Demand - a New York-based company, that launched BODVOD across 11 million cable homes in the area, in November. Each film costs $3.95 to view on Time Warner. And the carriers are impressed with the initial results.

Director, On Demand Services, Time Warner Cable, Betty Campbell-Adams told SAW, "Bollywood has been the second-most requested category, behind Spanish. It’s done successfully and we expect that success to continue."

The service is driven by relatively new Hindi movies such as Bluffmaster and Krrish, which will be available next February. But there are also classics like Kalyug and Chaudhvin ka Chand to watch. That was part of the strategy.

General Manager, BODVOD, Vinodh V Bhat explains, "We actually did two really key things. One we realized we needed to get the new releases - the content that people absolutely wanted to see, that are just coming out of the theatres. And the second thing we realized that, there’s a lot of movie content out there that’s not necessarily available on DVD. So, when you kind of couple those two things together, that’s what the market really asked for, and that’s what we delivered on."

BODVOD plans to take the package to Canada early next year and meanwhile, it’s also available on Google Video.

Anirudh Bhattacharyya